Southeast Utah, home to one of the most culturally and archaeologically complex landscapes in the country, is on the brink of being replaced by a different kind of legacy: oil and gas development.
Tuesday, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke is scheduled to offer oil and gas leases on public lands, specifically targeting the doorstep of Bears Ears National Monument — or what used to be the boundary of the national monument.
In December 2017, President Donald Trump unlawfully used the Antiquities Act to remove nearly 2 million acres from the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, reducing Bears Ears by 85 percent.